We live during the hinge of history. Given the scientific a… - Derek Parfit

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We live during the hinge of history. Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fast. We shall soon have even greater powers to transform, not only our surroundings, but ourselves and our successors. If we act wisely in the next few centuries, humanity will survive its most dangerous and decisive period. Our descendants could, if necessary, go elsewhere, spreading through this galaxy.

Derek Parfit

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About Derek Parfit

Derek Parfit (11 December 1942 – 1 January 2017) was a British philosopher who specialised in problems of personal identity, rationality, ethics, and the relations among them.

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Alternative Names: Derek Antony Parfit

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William James Bertrand Russell Sam Harris Jordan Peterson Yuval Noah Harari

Additional quotes by Derek Parfit

It’s a good reason for postponing pleasures that you will then have more time in which you can enjoy looking forward to them. I remember exactly when, at the age of eight, I changed over from eating the best bits first to eating them last.

It has been widely believed that there are such deep disagreements between Kantians, Contractualists, and Consequentialists. That, I have argued, is not true. These people are climbing the same mountain on different sides.

Classical Utilitarians...would claim, as Sidgwick did, that the destruction of mankind would be by far the greatest of all conceivable crimes. The badness of this crime would lie in the vast reduction of the possible sum of happiness.

We live during the hinge of history. Given the scientific and technological discoveries of the last two centuries, the world has never changed as fas… - Derek Parfit

About Derek Parfit

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Additional quotes by Derek Parfit